


Islands

by orphan_account



Category: Akira - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Slurs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short stories about friendship, rivalry, and love, from childhood to youth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of short fics I wrote based on my point of view of how their friendship developed through the years.  
> If you see any grammatical error, feel free to tell me. I'm no native english speaker so I'm always learning.  
> "Islands" and "Intro" are songs by The XX.

“Look, there’s another one!”  
  
“Another transfer student?”  
  
“He was abandoned.”  
  
“You’re right. You can see it in his face!”  
  
Tetsuo didn’t exactly remember the first time he was sent to an orphanage; he must have been three or four. Thereafter, it was a series of comes and goes between foster homes. He remember, though, that the last time he lived with a foster family was when he was 6. After four months, however, he was left again at the orphanage, this time to never come back. He didn’t know what was happening by that time, why he couldn’t settle in anywhere, and he didn’t mind, actually. Living with a family or living alone felt the same – he never felt attached to anyone.  
  
Shortly after his last arrival at the orphanage, the bullying started. He wasn’t sure what he did to the other children, but they didn’t seem to like him. He has always been the quiet kid, eating lunch alone, drawing by his own, minding his own business. Even then, the kids liked to bug him, stealing his food, spitting on his drawings, bumping into him with no apparent reason.  
  
On a particular afternoon, the bullies molested him so much he started to cry. He had never cried in front of them, ever. When he cried, it was only in the shower, alone, or when everyone was sleeping and nobody could hear him. But that afternoon, his bullies were feeling notably cruel. They were four kids, probably older than him, definitely taller and stronger. They were all around him and he was so nervous he couldn’t understand what they said. He heard something like “pussy” and “faggot”, and the kids started to push him around. They kicked him on the shins and, when an especially big kid shoved him, he fell on the ground, using his hands to absorb the impact. They laughed at him and one of them stole his action figure.  
  
It was too much for him. He felt a knot on his throat, and tears started to run down his flushed cheeks. The more he cried, the more the boys laughed. For the first time, he felt so alone and helpless. He ran away, the sound of the laughter echoing inside his head.  
  
Tetsuo went to his favorite hiding spot of the playground, where he knew the boys couldn’t find him crying. After waiting a few minutes, he went to the fountain to wash away the blood and the dust from his hands.  
  
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” a boy’s voice called him.  
  
He turned around. He knew that face: it was the first kid he saw by the time he came to the orphanage, a few months ago. Tetsuo didn’t know his name, though.  
  
The boy was holding his action figure, blood running down from his nose. Tetsuo gently took the figure from the other’s hands, noticing that it was unharmed.  
  
“They’re always like that with the new kids.” The boy said, wiping up the blood that was running from his nose. “You came today, right?” Tetsuo nodded in response. The other kid leaned to drink water on the fountain. “They beat me up too. But the truth is those guys are wimps.”  
  
Tetsuo stood still, big eyes looking at the other kid, not sure of what to do. Nobody helped ever him, nobody really cared about him at all. Nobody even looked at him like that: not like he was something unnecessary, but like an human being.  
  
“I’m Tetsuo. Tetsuo Shima.” He finally said.  
  
“To tell the truth, I just got here myself.” The kid said, smiling. “Name’s Kaneda. Shotaro Kaneda, but I hate Shotaro.” He said, with a grimace. “So call me Kaneda.”  
  
Tetsuo nodded, looking at his thorn shoes. When he looked up, blinking, the boy was already going back to the dorms, waving at him.  
  
He suddenly felt so happy and warm, like his heart was smiling. He had a friend now.


	2. Islands

Something started to change by the time they turned 11. Before that, Kaneda seemed to only have eyes for his best friend, taking care of him like an older brother would. Even though they lived in the orphanage, it was like they lived alone, just the two of them, protecting themselves from the world. Not that Kaneda needed any kind of protection, Tetsuo thought. He was always so strong, always knew what to do. He was the one who really needed to be protected.  
  
When both of them were 9, they were transferred to a room with two bunks. The boys that shared the room with them were soon adopted, leaving Tetsuo and Kaneda alone. The other kids that occupied the other bed afterwards never spent too much time there. Thus, that became their room, their hideaway, what they could have called home.  
  
Since he met Kaneda, Tetsuo rarely felt alone. And, curiously, before they met he didn’t realized how alone he was. He didn’t realized that he had some kind of hole in his chest. However, when they were together, he always felt that hole filled with something.  
  
On a particular night, though, it seemed that whatever it was filling him was gone. His chest felt tight, he had a knot on his throat, and no hunger at all.  
  
“You sure you don’t want to eat this?” Kaneda asked him at the dining hall, mouth filled with rice.  
  
Tetsuo just nodded, looking down.  
  
That night, lying on his bed, he couldn’t sleep. Kaneda was lying by his side, on the floor. They used to do it a lot: sometimes, Kaneda would put his mattress beside Tetsuo’s bed and they would talk for hours, until one of them (probably Kaneda himself) would fall asleep. Sometimes they competed to see who slept first. Sometimes they laughed so loud Miss Ogata would bang on the door, telling them to go to sleep. Their deepest childhood secrets were shared in those moments: do you prefer dogs or cats? Do you thinks it’s better to have a brother or a sister? Do you remember how your mother looked like?  
  
Kaneda was talking almost with himself. Tetsuo only responded with monosyllabic words, his mind far away.  
  
“Kaneda?” he finally asked.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Do you want to have a family?”  
  
Silence fell again between them. Kaneda took some time thinking about that. That was one of their serious questions.  
  
“Why? Do you want to?”  
  
“I don’t know, sometimes… I want to know how it is. To…” The knot in his throat felt bigger, the hole inside his chest felt shallower. “To have parents. And… and siblings.”  
  
Tears started to run down Tetsuo’s face. He closed his eyes tight, hoping it would make the tears stop from falling. He hated to cry in front of Kaneda, hated to show any weakness, ‘cause Kaneda was so brave, like he didn’t had any fragilities, like all Tetsuo ever wanted to be.  
  
“Tetsuo?” Kaneda’s voice was atypically calm.  
  
Silence came in response, interrupted only by Tetsuo’s ragged breathing. Kaneda stood up, sitting on his mattress. He looked at Tetsuo through the darkness of their bedroom but didn’t said anything. It wasn’t the first time he saw this kind of thing happening. Sometimes he pretended to be asleep, but he heard Tetsuo crying in his sleep. He knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it, so he never said a word.  
  
Kaneda awkwardly placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  
  
“You don’t need a family. Neither do I! We never needed it.”  
  
Watery eyes looked at him, the same eyes when they met.  
  
“I’m your family. And you’re mine.” Kaneda said, now firmly grabbing Tetsuo’s shoulder. “We don’t need anyone.”  
  
Tetsuo kept looking at him. He sniffed and wiped the tears away from his face, roughly, as if trying to hide them away and prove his courage.  
  
“We don’t need parents either. We have each other!”  
  
“You… you said you want to run away…”  
  
“But you’re coming with me!”  
  
Tetsuo went silent for a moment, thinking about what he heard, chewing on his lip.  
  
“For real?” He finally asked.  
  
“For real.” Kaneda said with a reassuring smile. “I’ll never let you alone.”


End file.
